Abstract

One major concern in the international economic sanctions is the potential problem of consequences of sanction's results. This paper seeks to explore the consequences of sanction's results (successful, positive, minor and failed outcomes) on the target countries human rights, democracy and life expectancy. We analyze the sanctions implemented by U.S.A and U.N based on the dataset of policy results index and the sanctions contribution results index qualitative analysis in Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott. The Imposition of Economic Sanctions (IES) includes 2765 cases in 73 countries during 35 years, since 1978-2012. This analysis evidence of consequences of sanctions results suggesting that sanctions played only a minor role in reaching the outcome, we reject the hypothesis that the sanctions and their consequences jointly have no impact on Human Rights, Democracy and Life Expectancy. In other words, our judgment in these cases is that sanctions did not contribute importantly to the sender’s goals.

Keywords

Introduction

The efficacy of sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy is still
in great doubt, in fact, one of the main features in this kind of works
is the focus on the consequences of economic sanctions. The common
rationale behind the imposition of these measures is that the higher
are the costs for the target countries, the higher will be the probability
that their government behavior could be affected because of welfare
losses [1,2] in fact, without any attention of the consequences of this
pressure on Human Right, Democracy and Life Expectancy in the
target countries. This study is an attempt to deals with these aspects of
negative sanctions based on Hufbauer and Schott’s data [1]. Economic
sanctions are domestic penalties applied unilaterally by one country
(or multilaterally, by a group of countries) on another country [1]. The
concept of sanctions as a blunt tool of diplomacy has been around at
least from the time of the ancient Greeks. As Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey
Schott note in their classic book on the topic, the history of economic
sanctions goes back at least to 432 BC, when the Greek statesman and
general Pericles issued the so-called “Megarian decree” in response
to the abduction of three Aspaisan women, there has been a long
history of countries blockading their enemies to compel a change in
behavior [3]. It is understandable that economic sanctions are used as
a tool of foreign policy by many governments and may include various
forms of trade barriers and restrictions on financial transactions and
also are usually imposed by a larger country upon a smaller country
for one of two reasons either the latter is a threat to the security of
the former nation or that country treats its citizens unfairly. They can
be used as a coercive measure for achieving particular policy goals
related to trade or for humanitarian violations. Economic sanctions
are used as an alternative weapon instead of going to war to achieve
desired outcomes. For example, in modern times, the United States
has employed economic sanctions in pursuit of diverse goals, from the
Carter administration’s efforts in the 1970s to promote human rights,
to attempts to impede nuclear proliferation in the 1980s [4]. They
may be high-tech than a flotilla at sea, but we don’t know exactly that
sanctions are any more effective and more humane today than they
were 2,400 years ago and why do traditional sanctions lead to these
unintended consequences? A traditional line of reasoning regarding
sanctions is the “naive theory” of economic sanctions [5]. In this, the
sender state or sender coalition applies economic coercion at the outset
of a confrontation against the target country, with the expectation that the sanctions will lead to economic hardship among the civilian
population. This economic hardship will harm the legitimacy and the
capacity of the political leadership and create pressure from the general
public and opposition groups on the government to either give in to
the sanction sender’s demands, or step down so a new government
with a different policy can take over [6]. This naive theory asserts
that the economic coercion will encourage opposition groups to be
more active in challenging the targeted leadership, knowing they have
support from the sender state (Drury and Peksen) also point out that
the suffering and frustration caused by the sanctions makes the target
state’s population more likely to commit political violence against the
regime [7]. The economic effects of the sanctions decrease the target
regime’s wealth and therefore shrink the funds the regime can pay
to supporters for their loyalty, also result in fewer resources for the
police and military which is crucial when repressing the population.
Subsequently, once targeted regimes feel the impact of economic
pressure from outside states or alliances, they should give in to the
foreign demands for political reform and this is done in order to curtail
the suffering for the civilian population [8]. Sanctions are least likely to
be imposed when they are most likely the policy goals will be achieved
and traditional broad economic coercion rarely harms the target
regime or their coercive capacity, instead, the sanctions cause severe
humanitarian and political consequences for the civilians in Table 1.
The political elite is usually successful in transferring the hardship to
the civilian population while mostly remaining insulated from the
coercion themselves and economic disruptions caused by the sanctions
can be used as a strategic tool to manipulate access to and redistribute
resources made scarce by the sanctions [9].

In fact, sanctions even increase the target regime’s repressive power
and even create incentives for the regime to restrict the democratic freedoms and civil liberties of the citizens so they can stay in power,
examples of this are seen in the sanctions applied against Cuba,
Rhodesia, Iraq and Iran [10]. Although economic coercion aims to
restrict political elite’s access to scarce economic and military resources,
the leaders more often than not can mitigate the negative effect of
economic coercion by controlling the allocation of the increasingly
scarce resources within the society as well as using transnational black
markets and illegal smuggling [4]. As an economy shrinks from the
restriction of economic ties imposed by the sanctions, the leadership
can redirect the economy so that they still have sufficient access to
scarce goods while making the rest of the population bear the burden
[11]. For example, Saddam Hussein and Ahmadinezhad did not seem
to suffer personally from the UN and USA sanctions in the same way
that the Iraqi and Iran public suffered. A major argument against the
use of economic sanctions is that the sanctioned state has time to adapt
to economic hardships, sanctions as a bargaining game, sanctioning
as an attempt to wear down a target into acquiescence, without
specifying a date for resolution. Instead, acceptance by either side of
the other side's terms could happen at any time during the sanctioning
episode. For this to rationally occur, both sides must face a constant
balance between accepting and waiting further, a condition we call
countervailing. Catherine CL suggest that place sanctioning behavior
in the context of rational bargaining in continuous time, drawing
out, as a result, a new relationship between the cost of sanctions and
the duration of sanctioning episodes [12]. The presence of a alliance,
signifying a positive pre-sanctions relationship between the target and
sender states, increases the likelihood that sanctions will end more
quickly with concession from the target state. Leventoglu [13] argues
that the impact of sanctions when the sanctioned state has the ability
to adapt in an otherwise standard bargaining model. She shows that
bargaining leverage gained through constant sanctioning depends
on the adaptability of the sanctioned state. In contrast, alternate
sanctioning is immune to adaptability and provides more bargaining
leverage for the sanctioning state. This finding is robust to introduction
of informational asymmetry. Moreover, alternate sanctioning may
eliminate informational asymmetry without actual use of sanctions
using a formalized bargaining model; Krustev argues that credible war
options are of critical importance in determining whether economic
coercion will be used and what distributional impact it might have.
Evaluating the model's empirical implications reveals that state choices
to initiate economic coercion and what coercion level to set indeed
depends on both military and economic factors [14]. The success rate
importantly depended on the type of policy or governmental change
sought. Episodes involving modest and limited goals, such as the
release of a political prisoner, succeeded half the time. Cases involving
attempts to change regimes e.g., by destabilizing a particular leader
or by encouraging an autocrat to democratize, to impair a foreign
adversary’s military potential, or to otherwise change its policies in a
major way succeeded in about 30% of those cases as shown in Table
1. Efforts to disrupt relatively minor military adventures succeeded in only a fifth of cases where that was the goal. Sanctions are more likely
to succeed when the sender firms’ strength in the target's market is
moderately strong, that is, it is not too weak or too strong. On the other
hand, senders have disincentives to enforce their sanctions policies,
given that the restriction of business transactions with target states may
undermine their firms' competitiveness relative to foreign firms. In this
study, we estimate the effects of exposure to economic sanctions on
Human Rights, Democracy and Life Expectancy at birth.

Related Literature Review

A large part of the early work on sanctions has focused on their
effectiveness as a coercive policy tool, and the conditions under which
sanctions can achieve successfully their intended policy objectives.
Evaluation of the consequences of sanctions results on human rights,
democracy and life expectancy is a new approach, but the Phenomenon
of international negative sanctions is generally studied in relation to its
effectiveness.

Since its publication, Hufbauer et al.’s Economic Sanctions
Reconsidered (1985) became the central point of reference for the
empirical study of economic sanctions. Many scholars have devoted
their efforts to distinguishing characteristics of degrees of success and
failure of the economic punishment. Baldwin et al. [15] examined
economic sanctions and the success of foreign policy goals. Ling
[16] found that conclusions of Hufbauer and Schott explored that
economic sanctions do not contribute very much to the achievement of
foreign policy goals, except in several situations involving small target
countries and modest policy goals, are sensitive to and unduly biased
by the methodology adopted. Peksen [17] argues that, evidence that
import controls have some leverage. And reject the hypothesis that the
sanctions and their consequences jointly have no impact on foreign
policy goals. He concluded that further empirical work is required
before pronouncements on the effectiveness of economic sanctions can
be made. Kimberly, Peter (1993) re-examined to use a probit estimation
technique to examine some of the variables that may determine success
or failure in the use of economic sanctions as an alternative to military
action [18].

They found that, the conclusions of Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott
regarding the effectiveness of economic sanctions in achieving foreign
policy goals. While Lam’s criticisms of the HSE methodology are valid,
the results of the model developed here differ in lending support to
the HSE conclusions. In addition, the model can be used to predict
the probability of sanctions contributing to a peaceful resolution of
the recent Middle East crisis. The predicted probabilities of success in
the Iraq case were above average and well above 50%. Susan [8] she
examined the determinants of economic sanctions success and failure.
With strong results suggesting that political structures do affect the
way states respond to economic coercion. She argues that the presence
of a democratic target shortens the duration of sanctions, regardless
of which side concedes and the factors that do not cause sanctions
success do not necessarily cause sanctions to fail and the regime type
of the target state is an important factor on both sides of the sanctions
equation.

Susan and David suggested in economic sanctions, a blunt
instrument? Economic sanctions have been referred to as a blunt
instrument that the international community has often wielded without
full consideration of the impact that these measures will have on the population of the targeted countries, particularly the weakest elements
of society. They studied Case studies of sanctions against Cuba, Iraq,
and Yugoslavia have demonstrated the impact that sanctions can have on the availability of food, Clean water, and medicine, causing
many to conclude that all sanctions have extensive public health
consequences. They examined the generalizability of these conclusions
in a quantitative cross-national study of sanctions and their public
health effects. They compared these effects to those associated with
both civil and interstate conflicts as critics have recently suggested that
sanctions are not a humane alternative to armed warfare. They find
that when sanctions have a large economic effect on the target they
can have severe public health consequences. These consequences are
substantively similar to those associated with major military conflicts.
However, when sanctions have little or no economic effect on the
target, they also have no substantive effect on public health. Building
on recent work to explore the human consequences of war, this work
also helps to demonstrate the importance of smart sanctions and
humanitarian exemptions in sanctions policy. Matthias and Florian
analyzed the effect of US economic sanctions on the target countries’
poverty. Their results indicate that US sanctions are indeed affecting
the wrong people as we observe a 2.3-5.1 percentage points (pp)
larger poverty gap in sanctioned countries compared to their nearest
neighbors. Severe sanctions, such as fuel embargoes, trade restrictions,
the freezing of assets or embargoes on most or all economic activity are
particularly detrimental and lead to an increase in the poverty gap by
6.1-7.4 percentage points [19].

Research Question

The main question is, based on the Policy Result index and the
Sanctions Contribution index qualitative analysis in Hufbauer, Schott,
and Elliott, we are trying to find out whether, any of the sanctions
results (successful outcome, positive outcome, minor outcome and
failed outcome), caused improving the variables of human rights,
democracy and life expectancy at birth in the target countries or has
harmful consequences, as shown in Table 2.

Political Terror Scale the State Department from four variables 1.Disappearances, 2.Torture, 3.Political imprisonment and 4. Executions (they both range from 1 (no violations) to 5 (most violations), however for an easier comparative interpretation of the regression tables they have been recoded so 1 denotes most violations and 5 denotes no violations) [6].

PTSA

Political Terror Scale the Amnesty International from four variables 1.Disappearances, 2.Torture, 3.Political imprisonment and 4. Executions (they both range from 1 (no violations) to 5 (most violations), however for an easier comparative interpretation of the regression tables they have been recoded so 1 denotes most violations and 5 denotes no violations) [6].

Democracy

Polity

Polity variable from two variables, 1. Autocracy, 2. Democracy, (autocracy score from the democracy score, and ranges from -10 (lowest levels of democracy and highest level of autocracy) to 10 (highest levels of democracy and lowest level of autocracy) [6].

New EMPINX

New Empowerment Rights Index from five variables, 1.worker’s rights, 2.political participation, 3.freedom of religion, 4.freedom of speech and 5.freedom of movement, (ranges from 0 (most violations of democratic rights and civil liberties) to 15 (no violations of democratic rights and civil liberties) [6].

LEB

Life expectancy at birth, total (years), Life expectancy is a statistical measure of how long a person may live, based on the year of their birth, their current age and other demographic factors including gender. At a given age (age x) is the average number of years that would be lived by a group of individuals (of age x) exposed to the same mortality conditions until they die. The most commonly used measure of life expectancy is life expectancy at age zero, that is, at birth (LEB) [6].

Independent Variables

Dummy variables taking the value one if:

Sanction All

The main independent variables of the study are coded based on the Hufbauer, Schott, Elliott, and Oegg dataset (2008). All sanction variables are binary and takes the value of 1 if the sanction type was implemented for a duration of more than two months that year, and 0 otherwise, including restrictions on trade in several goods (export & import), finance (financial transaction, exchange an asset for payment, investment), transport sector, travel restrictions, asset freeze, fuel embargoes, armembargo [1].

Export

Sender country imposes export controls.

Import

Sender country imposes import controls.

Finance

Sender country imposes capital controls.

Results Score

16-point scale that is the product of a four point policy success score and a four-point score of sanctions contribution. We characterize a score of 8 or higher as a “successful” outcome. The Policy Result index (on an index scale of 1 to 4), (1.failed outcome, 2.minor outcome, 3.positive outcome and 4.sucessful outcome) and the Sanctions Contribution index (on an index scale of 1 to 4, 1.negative contribution, 2.minor contribution, 3.substantial contribution and 4.decisive contribution) to achieve goals e.g. regime change & democratization, modest policy changes, disruption of military adventures, military impairment and other major policy changes [1].

Successful outcome

Found by multiplying by the policy result index (4.sucessful outcome) which the outcome sought by the sender country was achieved, and which the sanctions contributed (4. decisive contribution) successful outcome [1].

Positive outcome

Independent variable taking the value of 8 to 12 is the sanction was positive outcome. Found by multiplying by the policy result index (2.minor outcome & 3.positive outcome) which the outcome sought by the sender country was achieved, and which the sanctions contributed (3. substantial contribution & 4. decisive contribution) outcome result. Meaning the sender’s goals were partly realized [1].

Minor outcome

Independent variable taking the value of 2 to 6 if the sanction was minor outcome. Found by multiplying by the policy result index (2.minor outcome) which the outcome sought by the sender country was achieved, and which the sanctions contributed (2. minor contribution & 3. substantial contribution) outcome result [1].

Failed outcome

Independent variable taking the value of 1 if the sanction was failed. Found by multiplying by the Policy Result index (1.failed outcome,) which the outcome sought by the sender country wasn't achieved, and which the Sanctions Contributed (1.negative contribution) outcome result. In the sense that the sender’s goals were largely or entirely realized [1].

Control Variables

GDP per capita

denotes the natural log of Gross Domestic Product per capita

GDP Growth

denotes the annual change in GDP in percentage

Interstate war

Denotes the Magnitude score of episode(s) of international warfare involving that state in that year Scale: 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) for each MEPV (Major Episodes of Political Violence); Magnitude scores for multiple MEPV are summed; 0 denotes no episodes.

Civil war

Denotes the Magnitude score of episode(s) of civil warfare involving that state in that year Scale: 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) for each MEPV (Major Episodes of Political Violence); Magnitude scores for multiple MEPV are summed; 0 denotes no episodes.

Table 2: Variable definitions.

In fact, we want to answer that, in the target countries when
sanctions are applied, the amount of autocracy, disappearances,
torture, political imprisonment and executions, extrajudicial killings,
will increase and worker’s rights, political participation, freedom of
religion, freedom of speech, freedom of movement and life expectancy
at birth will decrease in the target countries if probability of sanctions
successfully will increase [20], as seen from Table 3.

Variables

Obs.

Mean

Std. Dev.

Min

Max

Dependent Variables

Physical Integrity Index PHYSINT

1878

3.83

2.28

0

8

Political Terror Scale, State Depth PTSS

2242

2.95

1.11

1

5

Political Terror Scale, Amnesty PTSA

2082

3.1

1.09

1

5

Polity

2157

0.57

6.71

-10

10

New Empowerment Right Index

1882

6.78

4.08

0

14

Life Expectancy at Birth LEB

2430

62.37

10.47

20.75

82.57

Independent Variables

Sanction All

2485

0.31

0.46

0

1

Export

2485

0.19

0.39

0

1

Import

2485

0.16

0.37

0

1

Financial

2485

0.28

0.45

0

1

Results Score

769

6.03

3.24

1

16

Failed outcome

2485

0.02

0.13

0

1

Minor outcome

2485

0.2

0.4

0

1

Positive outcome

2485

0.09

0.29

0

1

Successful outcome

2485

0

0.05

0

1

Control Variables

GDP growth

2155

3.76

8.95

-64.05

149.9

GDP per(ln)

2182

7.03

1.26

4.17

10.72

Interstate War

2306

0.17

0.93

0

9

Civil War

2306

0.39

1.34

0

7

Table 3: Summary statistics.

Methodology and Data

The main independent variables data for this paper were gathered
using the new version of Hufbauer, Schott, Elliott, and Oegg dataset
[1] for the main independent variables. The Imposition of Economic
Sanctions (IES) dataset includes 2765 cases in 73 countries and during
35 years, since 1978-2012. Economic sanctions are defined as actions
that one or more countries take to limit or end their economic relations
with a target country in an effort to persuade that country to change
its policies. All sanction variables are binary and takes the value of 1
if the sanction type was implemented for duration of more than two
months that year, and 0 if the sanction or sanction type wasn’t in place.
The dependent variables data for the Physical Integrity Rights Index
is taken from Cingranelli and Richards’s (CIRI) human rights dataset
[21]. The data for the state department political terror scale and the
amnesty international political terror scale impact of sanctions on
human rights is also tested on two different versions of Gibney and
wood’s political terror scale from the polity IV dataset, the level of
government respect for a variety of internationally recognized human
rights. The two index variables are based on data from the United States State Department and Amnesty International. The data for the policy
variables of democracy is taken from online dataset of systemic peace.
The data for the empowerment rights index is taken from Cingranelli
and Richards’s human rights dataset. The data for GDP per capita (log)
and GDP Growth is taken from the World Bank. The data for (LEB)
Life expectancy at birth, total (years) is taken from sources such as
world population prospects, international database. The data for Civil
War is taken from the polity IV dataset. The data for both the civil
war and interstate war variables are taken from the polity IV dataset.
Because all the dependent variables utilized in the analysis are ordinal
variables with scales of at least five points, all the regression models
are reported using ordinary time-series cross sectional regressions with
fixed effects. We used Stata version 13 to analysis impact of predictor
on dependent variable with panel data [22].

Empirical Results

In fact, the real question was, based on the Policy Result index and
the Sanctions Contribution index qualitative analysis in Hufbauer,
Schott, and Elliott, does any of the sanctions results, caused improving
the variables of human rights, democracy and life expectancy at birth
in the target countries or has harmful consequences? Table 4 reports
the effects sanctions in general have on three proxies of human rights.
The coefficients for comprehensive controls in affecting the Physical
Integrity Rights Index and Political Terror Scale of State Department
of human rights are negative but insignificant. Of the three economic
sanctions, capital controls are negative significant at the 0.1% level of
significance in affecting the Physical Integrity Rights Index, and positive
significant at the 0.1% level of significance in affecting the Political
Terror Scale of State Department and Political Terror Scale Amnesty
International, but only import controls are negative significant at the
1% level of significant of human rights, after controlling for all other
possible factors. The coefficients for export controls in affecting the
Political Terror Scale of State Department and Political Terror Scale
Amnesty International of human rights are negative, but insignificant.

The coefficients for import controls in affecting the Political Terror
Scale Amnesty International of human rights are negative, but do not
attain statistical significance. When Physical Integrity Rights Index
and the Political Terror Scale of State Department are the dependent
variables, disrespect for human rights actually will increase when
comprehensive sanctions are applied [23].

Tables 5 and 6 reports the results indicate for four models
specifications of sanctions results on Physical Integrity Rights Index,
proxy of human rights. The successful, positive and the minor outcomes
are negative and failed outcome is positive coefficients, expected
significant at the 0.1% level of significance, but successful outcome
is insignificant on the physical integrity rights index. This, however,
simply indicates that in this model there is much evidence to suggest
that any of these particular results of sanctions have undue effect on
the human rights variable case. When Physical Integrity Rights Index
is the dependent variables, disrespect for human rights actually will
increase (the amount of Extrajudicial killings, disappearances, political
imprisonment and torture are covering different aspects of human
rights abuses will increase) when probability of sanctions successfully
will increase [24].

Table 6: The Consequences of sanctions results on the PTSA (1978-2012).

Table 7 reports the effects of comprehensive economic sanctions
which have two proxies of democracy and life expectancy at birth
conditions. The comprehensive controls are not unexpected and
have negative significance at 0.1% level of significance in affecting
the Polity and New Empowerment Rights Index, upon controlling all other possible factors. The two economic sanctions, export and import
are not unexpected and have negative insignificance on two proxies
of democracy. As it is observed only capital controls has negative
significance and expected at 5 and 1% level in affecting the Polity
and New Empowerment Rights Index. When Polity and the New
Empowerment Rights Index are the dependent variables, disrespect for
democracy actually will increase when sanctions are applied. The effect
of comprehensive sanction, export, import and capital controls are not
statistically significant in affecting the Life Expectancy at Birth.

Polity

New Empowerment Rights Index

LEB

Comprehensive Sanctions

-1.047***

-0.811***

0.441

(0.247)

(0.133)

(0.268)

Export

-0.263

-0.361

0.655

(0.465)

(0.251)

(0.521)

Import

-0.088

-0.283

0.615

(0.460)

(0.247)

(0.518)

Financial

-0.800*

-0.484**

-0.166

(0.322)

(0.174)

(0.347)

GDP growth

0.022

0.003

0.029*

(0.011)

(0.007)

(0.012)

GDP per capita(ln)

0.994***

-0.651***

1.679***

(0.170)

(0.104)

(0.185)

Interstate War

0.163

0.197*

-0.772***

(0.166)

(0.091)

(0.179)

Civil War

-0.582***

-0.361***

-1.122***

(0.114)

(0.064)

(0.125)

Number of Observations

1977

1757

2043

R-squared

0.138

0.025

0.258

Table 7: The effect of economic sanctions on democracy and LEB (1978-2012).

Table 8 reports the results for four models specifications of sanctions
results on Polity, a proxy of democracy. The successful and the minor
outcome are negative and have expected significant at 1, 0.1% level of
significance, but positive outcome has a negative insignificance on the
polity and failed outcome are significant at 5% level of significance with
positive coefficient.

Table 8: The consequences of sanctions results on the polity (1978-2012).

This, however, simply indicates that in this model there is much
evidence to suggest that any of these particular results of sanctions have undue effect on the democracy case variable. When Polity is the
dependent variable, disrespect for democracy actually will increase
(the amount of autocracy will increase) when probability of sanctions
successfully will increase.

Table 9 results show the models testing the effect of the four
economic sanctions results on New Empowerment rights Index democracy, proxy of democracy. The successful, positive and the
minor outcomes are negative and have expected significance at 0.1, 1,
0.1% level of significance, but failed outcome has a positive expected
insignificant on the New Empowerment.

Table 9: The consequences of sanctions results on the new EMPINX (1978-2012).

Rights Index, this means, when New Empowerment Rights Index is
the dependent variable, disrespect for democracy actually will increase
(the amount of worker’s rights, Political participation, freedom of
religion, freedom of speech and freedom of movement will decrease)
when probability of successful sanctions will increase.

Table 10 reports the results for four models specifications. The
effect of the four economic sanctions results on life expectancy at birth
variable. The positive and the minor outcome are significant at 0.1%
level of significance, but positive outcome has a positive significance
on the LEB and minor outcome has a negative significance on the LEB,
both they take on an unexpected sign. The successful outcome obtains
a negative but insignificant coefficient in affecting the LEB. The failed
outcome obtains a positive but insignificant coefficient in affecting
the LEB and controlling all the other possible factors. This, however,
simply indicates that in this model there isn’t any evidence to suggest
that any of these particular results of sanctions have any undue effect on the life expectancy at birth case variable.

Table 10: The Consequences of sanctions results on the LEB (1978-2012).

Conclusion

While incorporating several changes to the original model by
Hufbauer and Schott, this paper is an attempt to test whether any of
the sanctions results (successful outcome, positive outcome, minor
outcome and failed outcome), Causes improving to the variables of
human rights, democracy and life expectancy at birth in the target
countries or has harmful consequences?

We tested using redefined independent and dependent variables to
take out the component related to the role of sanctions.

We are able to deduce from the coefficients of the sanctions on the
right-hand side based on the Policy Result index and the Sanctions
Contribution index which is in the qualitative analysis of the original
model by Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott. We for the first time, show
that the conclusions achieved using Hufbauer and Schott are sensitive
to the methodology adopted. Therefore we cannot easily reject the
sanctions and their consequences jointly have no impact on Human
Rights, Democracy and Life Expectancy. This is solely dependent on the
outcome results and polity of target countries. In addition we show that
based on the conclusions it is too hasty to disregard the consequences
of sanctions results. A direction for future research would be to create
a clearer picture of consequences of sanctions results and to study each
target country case by case.